LP and Logic - How to deal with astray MIDI commands?

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:37 pm

robles wrote:I still say there has to be some drop down box on the audio track itself for selecting midi inputs. I use Cubase and while I haven't checked the audio tracks, I do know for fact that each midi track has a drop down box for selecting which midi port it will receive data in from. You can choose All Inputs, one particular input from your listed midi inputs, or None.

I'll try to check later on the audio tracks, but I can't imagine that Logic would not have some simple way of deciding what midi input to allow for each individual track.

There is no 'off' in the midi drop down menu for the audio tracks in Logic 8. Even changing the midi channel does not keep the offending cc notes from muting/soloing.

If you look in the piano roll under hyper draw parameters you will see that CC#9 mutes the channel. This is the exact CC that the Phatty sends when tweaking the wave parameter on OSC 1. This action appears to be hard wired into Logic.

The only work around I've found is to either deselect the audio track every time or to set up the transformer blocking CC#9 altogether.

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 6:40 pm

rachel wrote:In fact it is exactly what you do.

Set Local Control off on your LP.
Set Omni Off.
Set MIDI Channels Xmit/rcv to channel 1 for both.

In Logic (I have an AMT-8 ) I have my LP set on Port 5. The MIDI channel for Port 5
should be set to 1 (not ALL).

Then your LP will only listen on Port 5 for channel 1 events, not for all Ports.

rachel

How does that apply to what's being discussed here? I'm confused.

rachel · Post by **rachel** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 7:27 pm

The question was asked about "stray" midi commands. I was giving a possible
suggestion as to their cause and a probable solution.

Having seen some weird stuff with MIDI, I thought it was worth passing some comments.

I have even seen a faulty wall wart that appears to work perfectly interfere with the
transmission of MIDI clocks, for example.

In the case of some cheaper MIDI interfaces, that do not do routing , or if there's an incorrect
Omni off/on setting, you will sometimes see a CC being broadcast from a controller
(in this case the phatty) that will spam all MIDI channels and ports and the result
is that Logic or some other hardware will respond incorrectly.

I tried hard to make my LP mute an audio track using CC9 and it couldn't do it,
so I suspect some other component....

rachel

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:43 pm

rachel wrote:I tried hard to make my LP mute an audio track using CC9 and it couldn't do it,
so I suspect some other component....

rachel

That is strange. Could it be that you are on an older version of Logic?

Part of the confusion may be from the term 'stray' that was used by the OP. The culprits here are two specific CC messages-#3 and #9.

Let's go another route to demonstrate that these two CC messages are indeed set up within Logic 8 to trigger either solo or mute.

Let's say I create an external midi track and an audio track in Logic. I then record automation from the Phatty as I tweak the LFO Rate on to the midi track. I have now created a region with the automation (this transmits from the Phatty as CC#3) on a midi track in Logic.

If I then drag this region of automation on to the audio track and hit play, the audio track will respond to this information by going into solo mode.

I can reproduce this same effect simply by selecting the audio track and turning the LFO Rate on the Phatty. This tells me that CC#3 in Logic is used to solo an audio track.

In the Hyper Draw menu (from within the Piano Roll Editor) there is a drop down menu that clearly states that #3 is solo and #9 is mute.

Am I missing something here?!

robles · Post by **robles** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:45 am

Jazzpunk wrote:
robles wrote:I still say there has to be some drop down box on the audio track itself for selecting midi inputs. I use Cubase and while I haven't checked the audio tracks, I do know for fact that each midi track has a drop down box for selecting which midi port it will receive data in from. You can choose All Inputs, one particular input from your listed midi inputs, or None.

I'll try to check later on the audio tracks, but I can't imagine that Logic would not have some simple way of deciding what midi input to allow for each individual track.
There is no 'off' in the midi drop down menu for the audio tracks in Logic 8. Even changing the midi channel does not keep the offending cc notes from muting/soloing.

If you look in the piano roll under hyper draw parameters you will see that CC#9 mutes the channel. This is the exact CC that the Phatty sends when tweaking the wave parameter on OSC 1. This action appears to be hard wired into Logic.

The only work around I've found is to either deselect the audio track every time or to set up the transformer blocking CC#9 altogether.

No "Off"? That's rather dispiriting. Does this midi drop down on the audio track allow selecting different midi ports? Ports, as opposed to channels. The port is the physical midi connection. If you have more than one midi input, select an input that the LP is not pugged into.

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 1:49 pm

robles wrote:No "Off"? That's rather dispiriting. Does this midi drop down on the audio track allow selecting different midi ports? Ports, as opposed to channels. The port is the physical midi connection. If you have more than one midi input, select an input that the LP is not pugged into.

No port option either. Sounds like Cubase has more options in this area.

I'm cool with the transformer work around for now. Thanks for the suggestions.

KingBarbarossa · Post by **KingBarbarossa** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:32 am

sorry, i could not participate in the conversation because i was traveling again.

i wonder if it wouldn't be the best thing to address this in an OS update since this is obviously a bug of the LP that can be reproduced.

a strange thing btw. happened today when i tried to use the lp again: this time it was not osc 1 that muted my track anymore, but this time osc2 freq would automate the panorama settings which is equally annoying. i do not know what is going on. but i think this is an OS issue.

in logic: how would i set up a transformer to block out those commands?
(i only know how to set up simple instruments in the environment...)

btw. my midi inderface is a motu midi express 128. it should work flawless, and it does so indeed on all my other external midi gear (6 more hardware synths).

but thanks so much to all of you so far for trying to help!

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 3:14 am

Hi King,
It's not a bug in the LP it is simply how the CC messages sent by the Phatty map to the controls within Logic.

Please read through my posts and you will see I already posted a link for you to a thread on the LPH forum that will show you how to set up the transformer.

KingBarbarossa · Post by **KingBarbarossa** » Sat Nov 24, 2007 11:49 pm

Jazzpunk wrote:Hi King,
It's not a bug in the LP it is simply how the CC messages sent by the Phatty map to the controls within Logic.

Please read through my posts and you will see I already posted a link for you to a thread on the LPH forum that will show you how to set up the transformer.

sorry, i missed that one... thank you very much!

i tried it out and it seems that i managed to make it work. i added another transformer into the chain to block out cc 10 which caused the panorama setting to go crazy.
i guess now with the transformers in place i can work with it.
thanks again, this was very valuable help.

but i still think that it is kind of a os bug. logic is one of the major players in the daw field and having the lp collide with it by default is bad. other synthesizer do not suddenly mute a track or alter panorama settings by default with any out of the box settings.

Amos · Post by **Amos** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:47 am

I've proposed the option to allow re-mapping of the LP's default MIDI CC assignments.

Although it is no more or less reasonable to ask the Logic programmers to allow one to change the default MIDI mapping for controls within Logic. In my view, it's more reasonable to expect custom mappings in a software environment than in a hardware synth's controls. I don't know why Logic doesn't allow this.

We'll see what we can do, anyway...

I think this may bear further investigation, though... when you send CC3 or CC10 from the LP, as far as I can see it is a plain, ordinary MIDI CC message... *exactly* the same as the Voyager sends out (which uses the same CCs as the LP), and the same as many other hardware synths surely use. So could it be that *no* other hardware synths use controllers 3, 9, or 10? That would seem odd to me, as they are convenient low numbers and are not reserved for anything within the official MIDI spec. Curious; very curious...

rachel · Post by **rachel** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 6:47 am

Logic is very hard-boiled. In spite of all that slick stuff, it's a coding mess.
A kind of software fossil from the Atari days. I like Logic, it's the only sequencer I use but
I am well aware of its weaknesses. I still can't get it to go like that with my LP and Logic 6.4.3
even though I see the messages coming in and so on.

I still reckon a corrupt Autoload environment will do this. Try moving Autoload to one side
and create a fresh one.

rachel

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 2:13 pm

rachel wrote:I still reckon a corrupt Autoload environment will do this. Try moving Autoload to one side
and create a fresh one.

Rachel, did you read my post explaining that this has nothing to do with 'stray' midi commands? It also has nothing to do with a corrupt autoload (by the way Logic 8 no longer uses 'autoload' files).

Logic 8 is responding to specific cc messages being sent from the Phatty because Logic 8 is set up this way!

Open up your piano roll editor. Look under the hyper draw menu. Select 'Other'. Do you not see that cc#9 is hardwired to 'mute' within Logic? If you see that this is indeed the case than you are actually doing something wrong in not being able to get the Phatty to cause Logic's track to mute when tweaking the wave parameter for Osc 1!

You keep saying you cannot get Logic to react the way being described by Barbarosa and myself so I am guessing that Logic 6.4.3 must be set up differently than Logic 8. If this is indeed the case, please let us know.

The way Logic 8 is responding to certain cc messages from the Phatty has everything to do with how these cc messages are structured within Logic 8 and nothing to do with a corrupt file.

rachel · Post by **rachel** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:43 am

Like I said, I am on 6.4.3 - I think if that's the case Logic 8 is going to be a problem for
lots of people. Sorry I miisread the thread - all over the place! I didn't even realise there was no
autoload anymore. Apple must've hacked the MIDI code somewhat....

rachel

rachel · Post by **rachel** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:47 am

Hmm, the Phatty definitely does not work this way with 6.4.3. Logic doesn't care what I
throw at it, unless I set it that way.

I have a BCF-2000 attached which I use as in Logic Control mode and it correctly does mutes
and so on. But the Phatty, although I see the controllers going in, do not affect any of the tracks
in any way.

This may sound stupid, but what if having a "Logic Control" attached somehow takes over
those modes the Phatty is messing up on? I will try to disconnect mine, but I don't
want to mess up my project right now.

rachel

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 2:18 am

rachel wrote:Sorry I miisread the thread - all over the place!
rachel

No need to apologize, your suggestions were very helpful in trouble shooting!

Hmm, the Phatty definitely does not work this way with 6.4.3. Logic doesn't care what I throw at it, unless I set it that way.

Sounds like some things may have changed for the worse since 6.4.3.